Gamergate victim set to launch online abuse support group

Victims of online abuse will soon get the help of a network of people who were, at some point in their lives, targets of online bullying.

Zoe Quinn, herself a victim of online abuse, and her partner Alex Lifschitz, decided to launch a support group called Cash Override, aimed at providing emotional support, legal counselling and help with media relations, both aspects that more often than not neglect the seriousness of the problem.

Besides the two of them, the network is staffed by a number of online abuse survivors whose identities remain anonymous to anyone outside the network

Among the services the network offers are crisis center support, offering on-call assistance, ongoing assistance to victims, which focuses on the long-term effects of online abuse, and community outreach and activism, which seeks to prevent victims from ever needing help in the first place.

Zoe Quinn is a game developer who was subject to widespread harassment, which sparked the #Gamergate movement.

She was accused of having sex with journalists in order to get positive reviews for her games, which led to her private information being posted online as well as getting death threats.

In a conversation with The Guardian, Quinn said her initial plan is to bring her lessons to the world for free.

“We are a small group of people working out of pocket and we’re not asking for funding right now, which may or may not change down the line based on our needs, so we can’t take every single case”, she told The Guardian.